The Hardest Cartridges to Remanufacturer
Challenging Toner Production Anyone who sells toner, remanufactures toner or deals with a lot of printers knows there are a few cartridges which are notoriously a huge pain to remanufacture well. The ones that we see which have the biggest issues (and have made us switch suppliers based on quality concerns) are the HP Color Laserjet 5500, HP Color Laserjet 5550, and the HP Laserjet 9000 series cartridges. As you break these cartridges apart to pun in a new drum and new wiper blades, you almost have to put back together a swiss clock. There are many challenges, and if a remanufacturer does not have dedicated employees for the build of these cartridges. What do we do to help deal with these issues? We track these cartridges to make sure our suppliers have reasonable defective rates for these. We assume a 2% to be acceptable failure rate on these. We make sure the remanufacturers will also guarantee the printer if the cartridge itself causes printer damage We go to the factories and distribution centers from time to time to check their quality We use ISO certified companies for our suppliers. ISO guarantees a consistent PROCESS, not necessarily a good product, [...] read more Don't Gamble With Toner
I was looking around online at “refilled” cartridges this morning. In this economy it’s easy to look for the cheapest toner cartridge to do your printing. However, you often get what you pay for. If you are looking at “refilled” cartridges, what you are probably going to get are what we in the industry call “drill and fill.” They are pretty much exactly what they sound like. With the “drill and fill” method, a hole is drilled into a common cartridge (like the HP Q1338A, Q1339A, Q5942X, or the Q5945A). Dry toner powder is then poured in the drilled hole (often drilled or melted), and the hole gets patched up with a rubber plug. This method is NOT recommended. First, the chances of getting plastic shavings in your toner are are very high. Second, the toner available online is NOT the same as the manufacturer’s toner (generally far inferior). Third, if the plug comes out, it will damage your machine and create a huge mess! Fourth, if your cartridge does explode, it is not covered under warranty, and you are going to either lose every penny you saved by having your printer cleaned and/or replaced. Fifth, If you do “drill [...] read more
How Toner Works: A Guide for the Curious
Lots of people use laser printers, but if you asked them how printers and toner work, they’d look at you like you asked them to explain quantum mechanics. So, here’s a brief overview of how the toner goes from those plastic cases to the full-color spreads your advertizing team loves. With most models (Kyocera and a couple others are different) a laser beam projects an image of the page you want onto an electrically charged rotating drum coated with a chemical (usually selenium). The light causes the selenium to react, and it removes charge from the areas exposed to light. Dry ink (the toner) particles are picked up by the drum’s charged areas due to the electronegativity of the toner. The drum then prints the image onto paper by direct contact, and heat (from the fuser) adheres the ink to the paper. This is important to understand when your prints are looking funky. If your print has lots of lines through it, the problem is probably your drum (especially if the patterns are predictable and similar). If the toner is flaking off the page, the problem is probably your fuser (not heating the toner enough to cause it to stick [...] read more
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